Zettelkasten
A method of intellectual work in which thoughts and pieces of information are written one to a card or slip of paper and accumulated while being linked to one another by numbers and keywords, and also the box that holds those cards. The German word means "box (Kasten) of slips (Zettel)," and it is translated into English as slip box. Its distinctive feature is that one follows the connections between cards to retrieve and recombine thoughts, producing new ideas and writing, and it became widely known through the practice of the German sociologist Niklas Luhmann.
How it works
One thought is written on one card, and each card is given its own number. The numbers are often assigned in a branching form: a thought related to a given card is inserted after it as a card whose number derives from that card's number. In addition, the numbers of other related cards are noted on each card for cross-reference, and an index of headings and keywords is kept. In this way, information is not classified and filed away but linked like a net, so that unexpected combinations can be found later.
History
The method of organizing information on cards developed from the tradition of the commonplace book, in which key points were written down and accumulated. In the 16th century Conrad Gessner devised a method of cutting up and arranging slips of paper, and in the 1640s Thomas Harrison designed an early card cabinet. In the 18th and 19th centuries Carl Linnaeus, Jean Paul, and others used systems based on slips of paper. In the 20th century Walter Benjamin, Roland Barthes, Hans Blumenberg, and others also used such methods.
Luhmann's Zettelkasten
Niklas Luhmann (1927–1998) accumulated roughly 90,000 handwritten cards over some 40 years, and they supported the writing of an enormous number of books and papers. His cards were managed by branching fixed numbers, and Luhmann himself is said to have regarded the collection not as a mere store but as something like a conversation partner. The Niklas Luhmann Archive at Bielefeld University has scanned the whole collection and made it available online, and images of the first card box (1951–1962) can also be viewed in the digital collections of the university library.
Later influence
The idea of linking cards to one another also influenced the hypertext systems of the 1980s and, later, the thinking behind wikis. In recent years, Sönke Ahrens's How to Take Smart Notes, which explains Luhmann's method, has drawn attention, and a Japanese edition, TAKE NOTES! (translated by Yumeko Futatsugi, Nikkei BP, 2021), has also been published.
To verify
- The number of Luhmann's works (the English Wikipedia gives about 50 books and about 550 papers; the description of Ahrens's book gives 58 books and several hundred papers)
- The year Luhmann began using cards (some sources give 1951, others 1952–53)
- The year of publication of the original edition of How to Take Smart Notes
References
- Mentioned in
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